As online payments provider PayPal announced a further 150 new jobs at its European HQ in Dublin this week, the chief executive of eBay John Donahoe gave us a glimpse of PayPal’s potential.Over 1,200 people already work at PayPal’s European Centre of Excellence in Blanchardstown and its European business achieved $1 billion in revenues for the first time in 2010. PayPal is now the default online payment method for a vast array of companies and millions of individuals. However, it’s potential to literally rule the online payment world was given a boost by one of the world’s largest online marketplaces.eBay’s success is very closely aligned to PayPal’s rise and the future possibilities for both companies are glaring CEO John Donahoe in the face.During a question-and-answer session at the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference in San Francisco, Donahoe said off-line or bricks & mortar retailers are banging on eBay’s door looking for an alternative to credit and debit cards. What they want is ‘wave & pay’ technology linked to people’s mobile phones. “Merchants are beating down the door saying: ‘We want to migrate customers to non-card solutions’”, said Donahoe.All the major handset manufacturers from Apple’s iPhone to HTC are developing Near Field Communications chips, to build mobile devices that can allow point-of-sale payments with a simple wave or tap.Donahoe said PayPal aims to be compatible with all the devices. He wants to transform eBay’s PayPal service into a “wallet in the cloud” for consumers.This will happen sooner rather than later and once PayPal’s service is ‘device agnostic’ Visa and Mastercard should have many sleepless nights ahead.

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I am a restless Creative Technologist and Entrepreneur. Currently, I am Managing Partner @ Y.Mobile, a mobile marketing and technology consultancy. Prior to that I was an Interactive Creative Director at Razorfish, Digitas and Publicis Modem. I hold an M.F.A from Cranbrook Academy of Art and a B.F.A from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. I like turtles.
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